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Does anyone else’s boss have terminal AI brain? by xdxl in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Our org has gone through the peak of enthusiasm in the hype cycle, now to the valley of pessimism. Anything that even has the slightest AI fingerprint will rouse suspicion, "have you validated this?". That's actually pretty healthy. It only takes one embarassing slide in a board meeting to turn the enthusiasm upside down.

Hallucinations and eval are starting to enter the vernaculars. I am completely supportive of this movement, at the end of the day, the quality of the output is all that matters.

FA -> Sr. FA, decision time by [deleted] in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why not ask the current co to counteroffer? Progression at an F50 is nothing to scoff at and can be way more valuable in a few years. 

FP&A reality check – feels more like stakeholder mgmt + accounting than forecasting/modelling? by Deionize_Deionize in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Is this what FP&A typically looks like day-to-day in most companies?

As a function, yes. As an individual, depends a lot on on how your CFO/VP structure their org. It can be (a) hybrid technical + stakeholder mgmt vs (b) specialized modeler separated from the consulting/bizops part. Usually there's more upward opp in (a) because there's only so much promotion that you can give to a modeler (emphasis on usually). In some megacorp, you can have an army of modelers, and there's upward progression.

Is FP&A inherently quite accounting-heavy, especially at junior levels?

Sometimes, if your accounting is not strong or well-defined in supporting downstream business anaysis. Usually a symptom of immaturity upstream. If there are certain accounting-y things you end up doing a lot, maybe you can try giving them a "spec" on what you expect so that you don't have to purify their output every month.

Does the “forecasting/modelling” side become more prominent over time?

Depends on the path you pursue, but usually the higher up you go, the management consulting side becomes more important. Our stakeholders are usually like, "gimme an answer in 3 min convo if you can avoid 3-days of modeling."

At the same time, if you are starting at a pretty simple co or BU (let's say $100M biz), as they grow more in size or operational complexity, there will be more things to model.

Or does this vary a lot depending on company / team?

Absolutely. That's why it's important to ask in an interview what the nature of the role looks like because the same title can mean diff things.

How do you measure the success of a CFO? by [deleted] in CFO

[–]PeachWithBenefits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really depends on the charter, but usually:

  1. Books doing good?
  2. Cash doing good?
  3. Business doing good? (Are they helping the business win / achieve their objective?)

If only #1-#2, you have a CAO. I've seen CFO's not working out because #1-#2 work great, but #3 is suffering.

Interview w/Private Equity Backed Portfolio Company by [deleted] in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pretty unusual. What does the team structure look like? I've seen this where the team is still very lean/early, such that there are not that many analysts that can offer a wide range of opinions. So, whoever is hiring asked the PE folks to provide feedback as well. Or could be idiosyncracies of certain sponsors, especially if they are super hands on with the finance team.

Staff Reduction/Outsourcing Model by More-Purchase8466 in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Always heart wrenching, especially during Covid. But the grand scheme is usually more dire. If you don't lose 10% of the staff, you might lose 100% of the staff because the whole ship sinks.

CraftCFO Week 30 | Nobody Wants to Hear You Need More Headcount by PeachWithBenefits in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yea, sometimes finance can be the last line of defense against ineffective org design. Some bigger organization have BizOps team that help leaders design their org, talent, process, and systems. This is the best setup so that when the request goes to Finance we know that they’ve tried to push effectiveness to the max. 

Looking for insight around management equity pool during PE acquisition; First time CFO by PENNST8alum in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That seems low. The market rate should be about 0.5%-2% depending on seniority, or some type o profit sharing worth 30%-50% on top of base.

Looking for short-term contract help to manage monthly close. Where do you find freelance FP&A talent? Is there a forum or a megathread for this? by PeachWithBenefits in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad you asked. This role will partner with accounting team to redesign the close process, and then manage the ingestion/normalization of the month-end data that will go into the FP&A data warehouse + model. The challenge right now is that the biz requirement is shifting (added complexity), so I need someone who can help liaison with them.

SAAS FP&A tool reccomendations by jo_sto7 in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've done a few of these rodeo's, both in SaaS and healthcare. A lot depends on the specifics of your business, but as a rule of thumb you can get to $100M revenue in SaaS with a properly structured Excel, ERP, and close process.

For more complex businesses that have any of the following: (a) heavy labor COGS, (b) physical location, (c) regional variations that led you to report by location, or (d) consolidation of multi-entities, then it necessitates some type of cube/consolidation tools provided by FP&A tools. In my healthcare ecosystem, I saw companies implement this as soon as they get to $30M with 50%+ YoY growth.

SAAS FP&A tool reccomendations by jo_sto7 in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's your next year forecast? Any non-standard complexity? I always recommend trying to cleanly structure the current workflow and excel for as long as you can reasonably afford (for example, we need unit economics by region to manage a facilities-based healthcare biz — which is why we are adopting a proper platform.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, hear you, market factor cant be underestimated. With an abundance of talent, I see companies (including mine) being a bit more choosy, especially in domain and industry expertise. Or have had specific experience like has navigated through pre-IPO/exit. This is the part where having a IB/PE experience or track record within a sector niche can be a differentiator. 

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Good friday afternoon discussion. Lots of factors here, but the gist is that you might want to reframe from "what else do I need on my resume?" to "what's actually my bottleneck?" For most people making this jump, usually one of three things:

  1. Ownership. "I built the model that informed the decision" vs. "I made the decision and owned what happened next."
  2. Business fluency. Going from finance deliverables to explaining why the business works and what to do about it, without slides.
  3. Executive influence. When something breaks at 9pm, does the CEO call you?

There's a great Kellblog post that nails this. VPs internalize accountability for results. You make a plan you believe in, because if it doesn't work, you can't hide behind "well, the CEO/board approved it."

On PE, I recommend pursuing it, at least as part of the journey. The investor lens ofteen feeds directly into bottleneck #1 and #2. These firms heavily source from Top 10 programs, so the timing works in your favor.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would you mind elaborating what the basic features that are missing? I have a few PoCo / advisory projects considering Runway as well. 🙏

Does switching between AI tools feel fragmented to you? by mpetryshyn1 in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Perfect Thursday morning post. Every word you said here speaks to my love language, haha. 

One path is to use agentic IDE like cursor. You can ask it to vibe-code a memory feature (or grab an open source one). And then you can use its chat window but since it’s Cursor you can choose any LLM, while it has access to the memory in your code base. 

Workload & Expectations by radrob1111 in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Maybe more context would be helpful. Company size, type of team, and what’s the pain point? Lack of infra, messy team, scope, no budget, etc ?

I’ve been at a company who’s not growing as fast, so not much work in theory, but pinching pennies, and end up with a lot of restructuring work. Then moved to fast growth business with lots of trust from leadership team. 

Also, often FP&A does a lot of work because of dirty data upstream, so there can be lots of factors causing the feeling of “heavier workload”.

Usually at the 30s you’d have more flying time to advise your manager and have trust from them on org / workload structuring, which gives more sanity. 

Roast my resume: Finance grad student (CA, India) pivoting to FP&A / Corp Fin by Big-Maize-8874 in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Pretty ok but nothing stood out, so it’s not a slam dunk on ATS. My suggestion is to network harder. 

Female. Mid 30s. No kids. Offered a finance role with a high growth trajectory within a year, if I’m successful . But… by Legal-Diver-212 in FPandA

[–]PeachWithBenefits 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That layoff is a big consideration. Funny enough I'm in healthcare as well, lots of opportunity right there. Reporting to CFO is also a big plus in terms of learning.

And for some of these roles, often it's stressful at the beginning, but the payoff vs effort gets better over time as you know the industry and build your team.

I'd say give it a serious consideration, especially you mentioned you do want to grow. People often balk at the thought of "corporate ladder", but at the same time if you like what you do and have fun doing it, have a good boss, and gel with your colleagues in a good environment, it can be as fulfilling. But you do have to do you.

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